Thursday, October 23, 2014

UPDATE: This project made it to the Top10 in the Cricut Design Space Star contest! Yippee! I would appreciate it if you could take a minute to VOTE FOR this Day of the Dead Doll.

I know I am not the only admirer of the art and imagery surrounding Dia de los Meuertos. It's pretty irresistible. And so while I don't get super excited about decorating for Halloween I did find myself completely smitten with this Day of the Dead Doll!

I have to blame Cricut for this late night, as I'm one again participating in the Cricut Design Space Star Competition with my fabulous Team12 (#CricutTeam12Love). We settled on the idea of skulls and bones and I knew I wanted to give it a Mexican spin.

After perusing the Internet for imagery I decided to try a softie. Makes sense given the primary audience in my home. But I may have to keep this little doll for myself. And make a few more.

I'd love to play with other embellishments. Hand embroidery. There are lots of possibilities here.

And this can be a nearly no-sew pattern too! With adhesive stabilizer all of the felt appliques can simply be ironed on. Hand sewing gives it a great touch if you want to do that. I used my Bernina 580 and my latest favorite stitch, #713, to stitch around the outside of the doll, which is the only stitching required, but this doll could be completely handsewn too. I've got instructions for both approaches below.

Upload my .svg files within Cricut Design Space, or link to my project. If you link to my project the files are set up for you at the right size, you can just start cutting! If you are uploading my .svg files please note the sizing specifications below.

Insert the "Day of the Dead Pattern_AestheticNest" .svg file (this is the black shape of the doll). Edit and set the size to 10.28" high.

Insert my "Day of Dead Skeleton_AestheticNest" .svg file and set the height to 9.14".

Insert "Day of Dead Flowers_AestheticNest" .svg fiel and set height to 9.75".

TO PREPARE YOUR FELT: I have to admit that cutting heavy felt required some trial and error, but the good news is that I can share my experience with you! Prepare your felt for cutting by backing it with HeatN'Bond Ultra Hold Adhesive stabilizer. I tried some others and this is what I recommend! Cut the stabilizer a bit smaller than your felt and iron it on the wrong side of the felt. Then use heavy pressure to press the backing side (wrong side) of the felt to your Cutting Mat. After cutting your shapes the felt comes off the mat pretty easily (occassionally I had part of the paper backing stick.)

USE THE CRICUT DEEP CUT BLADE in your Cricut Explore and set the material setting to "Custom". Hit "Go" to set up the mats for printing. The Cricut Explore will group the shapes by color and arrange them to use your felt economically. Select "Felt with Backing" as your material.

Cut each of the mats to get all the pieces you'll need for your doll.

**Please note that you will need to cut 2 COPIES of the "Doll Pattern" in black felt to make the body. ** You can also use the PDF pattern and cut the doll body by hand if you don't want to add the interfacing (this will create a softer doll).

TO ASSEMBLE THE DOLL NO-SEW:

Do not remove the paper backing from your cut felt pieces, yet.

Take one of the black doll body pieces and lay it right side up on your ironing board.

Remove the paper backing from the skeleton pieces and arrange them right side up (so the adhesive is touching the black felt) on the doll piece per the illustration above. Iron the pieces in place using a "wool" setting on your iron.

Peel the backing off the purple floral eye piece and stack it on the yellow circle. Iron in place. Peel the backing off the yellow circle and the red and yellow heart shape pieces. Lay the heart and eye pieces on the skeleton as illustrated and iron.

Peel the backing off the black doll pieces.

Place the two black doll pieces wrong sides together and either hand stitch or machine stitch around the edge of the body leaving a 2.5" gap at the top of the head. I used my Bernina 580 and the stitch #713 to resemble hand stitching. Zig Zag stitching or a blanket stitch would look great here, as would straight hand stitching with embroidery floss.

Fill the doll with polyester, wool or cotton stuffing.

Stitch the doll closed at the top of the head.

Layer and stitch the flower pieces as desired. I used hand stitching in the middle. You could sew around the edges if you'd like.

Hand sew the flowers in a crown shape on the top of the head.

TO HAND-CUT AND SEW:

You will need all of the felt materials described above, plus your sewing machine.

Use the pattern pieces to cut out all your pieces from your felt. Remember to cut TWO PIECES of the black doll body.

Arrange the skeleton on one of the black doll pieces per the pattern and photos and applique the pieces using your sewing machine. Or hand sew them in place. Decorative stitches would be great here!

Add the eye pieces and heart pieces as pictured and sew into place.

Place the two black pieces of the doll wrong sides together and stitch around the edge of the body leaving a 2.5" gap at the top of the head. I used my Bernina 580 and the stitch #713 to resemble hand stitching. Zig Zag stitching or a blanket stitch would look great here, as would straight hand stitching with embroidery floss.

Fill the doll with polyester, wool or cotton stuffing.

Stitch the doll closed at the top of the head.

Layer and stitch the flower pieces as desired. I used hand stitching in the middle. You could sew around the edges if you'd like.